Our Movie Critic's Weekend Selections

Love & Mercy Fascinating psychological biopic of Brian Wilson, the songwriting savant behind the Beach Boys, toggling back and forth between the mid-'60s and the band's landmark Pet Sounds album and the '80s, when Brian, wrongly diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, was under the despotic care of a psychologist. Paul Dano is brilliant as the young Brian, John Cusack brings the middle-aged and broken Brian to life. Elizabeth Banks and Paul Giamatti co-star. PG-13

Ex Machina Alex Garland's forward-thinking, unsettling sci-fi thriller stars Oscar Isaac as the billionaire inventor of a sentient robot, Domhnall Gleeson as the whiz-kid programmer invited to run the 'bot through a series of tests, and Alicia Vikander as Ava, the cyber-creature in question. Is she true A.I.? And if she is, what does that mean for humankind? Trouble. R

Spy Melissa McCarthy has found her franchise, playing a CIA desk jockey unexpectedly sent into the field - Paris, Rome, Budapest - in this raunchy, lunatic cloak-and-dagger farce directed by Bridesmaids' Paul Feig. Allison Janney, Miranda Hart, Jude Law, and a very funny Jason Statham (who knew?!) also star, with Rose Byrne and her piles of hair as the villain of the tale. R